So, it’s happened.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be un-pregnant.
I look at this picture, taken four years ago, and I wince at the 30 pounds of Catie crushing my uterus. My urge is to protect myself, even though I know that there’s no reason because I wasn’t pregnant when this picture was taken.
Pregnancy–especially the last few weeks—is so completely consuming that I think about little else. Yet, I know I’ll forget the very unique sensations that come with having a baby squirming inside me.
This baby will be our last, and it won’t be long before I’m back on my back giving kids horsey rides and running up and down the stairs. And as soon as I’m not pregnant, I’ll forget what this really felt like.
Here’s what I want to remember…
- The complete void of energy that comes in late pregnancy. To be fair, it’s in early pregnancy too, but the one I’m feeling in the Ninth Month is like mud in my veins. Blame it on gravity—that’s what I do when I try to climb the stairs. It’s like a force field, originating in the middle of my body and cementing my self to the Earth. This “I need to sit down NOW” sensation is one I’ve only felt when ten pounds of baby/placenta are literally weighing me down. No matter how tired I am toting around kids and a newborn, nothing compares with the exhaustion of, the breathlessness, the deep down internal fatigue of late pregnancy.
- The squirms and kicks and “oh, wow, I’m pretty sure this baby is picking up my liver and tossing it around” somersaults. Maybe this isn’t something I’ll forget—after all, this is what mothers seem to recall about pregnancy, the sensation of another person moving inside them. What I might forget? The drama of those movements. How sudden they are. We can predict almost any other physical sensation. You can feel a headache coming on. If you live with constant pain, you come to expect the throbbing. Maybe there’s something physiological that warns your brain that your body will soon feel a certain way. A baby is a whole separate being. The baby living inside me moves from one side of my body to the other so suddenly, it literally takes my breath away. It doesn’t know I’m trying to walk up the steps. Or make an important phone call. Or sleep. It’s so memorable, it seems like I’ll never forget the sensation. But I will.
- My pre-occupation with the impending birth and baby. I just can’t focus on anything else. Luke writes in Chapter 2 that Mary “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” This daydreaming about our baby feels exactly like that, like I’m pondering and treasuring and storing these feelings up in my heart. Of course, Mary did this after Jesus’ birth, but this ability to quietly ponder is just one of the gifts that God gives mothers and soon-to-be-mothers. This calm focus on the baby. Especially Mary, who had so much to ponder and treasure about the miraculous birth she had just experienced.
Or maybe was just trying to remember what it was like to be pregnant.
